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The IDEA Debate Exchange 2017 will be held in Turku from August 21 until August 28. The IDEA Debate Exchange aims to increase cooperation between student debate organisations in Europe and to strengthen their organisations, their reach and effectiveness. The participants exchange experiences and practices based on their work in different countries. More information can be found here

The Exchange offers sessions in two different tracks: one for coaches and one for trainers. The coaches track offers a diverse set of skills for debate organising: promotion, recruitment, fundraising, organising events, giving training. The training academy aims to provide in-depth training to trainers. The training programme consisted of sessions by experienced trainers as well as "seminars" hosted by the partner organisations: question-and-answer sessions in which organisations could brainstorm on problems they all faced or presented projects or best practices that they felt could be useful for other organisations.

Other programme components are a practice day, in which participants put what they have learned into practice by running a debate competition, judging in it, tabbing, or providing training or coaching. In addition, there will be sessions discussing opportunities for cooperation, social events and an excursion to explore Finland. Previous editions of the event were held in Sofia, Ljubljana and Hoorn (Netherlands). The pictures of the event can be found here.

Participants will be able to choose which of the two tracks to participate in. Participation in the coaches’ track is free for participants from partner organisations. Participants in the training academy will be charged a fee of €175. Everyone is invited to apply in 2017. Participants from non-partner organisations are also welcome to apply, but will be asked to pay a fee of €250. Partner countries are: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Macedonia, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom

Program

The basic program for the IDEA Debate Exchange 2017 will be as follows:

You can find a more detailed sample training programme from 2016 in this document. Each training day consists of longer workshops and shorter seminars. The former are sessions that cover a larger topic guided by a trainer, while the seminars can be set up on demand and on the spot, cover a shorter topic and/or can be more of a dialogue than a training.

About Us

The International Debate Education Association (IDEA) is a global network of organizations that value debate as a way to give young people a voice, with entities in the Netherlands, USA, UK, Macedonia, Kyrgyzstan and Tunisia.